I interviewed my grandfather. He was a doctor in the South Vietnamese army. Originally, I had wanted to interview my mom about coming to America (They jumped onto a boat and then drifted, starving, for days), but she convinced me to interview my grandfather instead. Since he lives several hundred miles away and his first language is, you guessed it, Vietnamese, I decided to email him instead of actually going to talk to him in person.
The issues:
Most of the questions had a one-sentence response, mainly because they were redundant in relation to the answer to the previous question. In addition, there were a lot of questions that my grandfather hadn't thought to elaborate upon. If I had been there in person, I could've asked related questions and been done a bit faster.
The benefits:
I didn't have to transcribe, always a plus, and, unlike some people, my grandfather is very prompt in his replies. He also elaborated very well, with many quotes I'll be able to use.
I learned a lot of things during my interview. Firstly, my grandfather had been jailed and then escaped. Secondly, my grandfather had been jailed and then escaped.
Yes. It happened not just once, but twice. The second time he was under high-security watch, too. My mom provided some explanations and she had a lot of stories to tell about leaving Vietnam too, which helped a ton. For example, I'm sure the jail conditions were horrendous, but the jailers weren't too smart. They were kids, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and they were neither the best nor the brightest; the best, the brightest and the experienced were need on the battlefield. If you were determined and resourceful (like my grandfather), you could escape from jail twice.
More info on Vietnam
Info on Ho Chi Minh (the person, not the city)
Oh, and I DO NOT in any way, shape or form, endorse this man or anything he embodies.
-[Asian X]
Interesting. There could be a lot of expand upon here. The differences between military and civilian prisons, the vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective etc. Did he ever tell you exactly how he escaped.
ReplyDeleteWell, there really weren't any civilian prisons, or a least not in the context you're speaking of. I believe it was just prison in general, because they didn't keep civilians prisoner; they only kept whom they needed. For example, my grandfather was a doctor, and during that time period doctors were in high demand. If he hadn't gone through medical school, it's very unlikely that they would've kept him; instead, they probably would've executed him on the spot.
ReplyDeleteThe Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective was mainly a nationalist movement. I'm not quite sure how America viewed it (a war against communism perhaps?) but the Vietnamese viewed it as a reclaiming of their country. At the very least, that's what my grandfather described Ho Chi Minh leading the war with...
Finally, no, he didn't tell me exactly how he escaped. My mother implied that he crawled through grass...I think...but I'm not really sure how it worked.